


What's Your Malfuction?

by xXScreenSaverXx



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Gen, Human Hal, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Learning to Human, Not Beta Read, Post-Sburb, at least he is now, dirk isnt a bad person we love him, hal is a sad boy, he just makes bad decisions, i promise its not depressing, sorta fluff i hope, unhealthy sleeping patterns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 09:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18363548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXScreenSaverXx/pseuds/xXScreenSaverXx
Summary: Hal can confirm that androids (or, at least, Auto-Responders) do not, in fact, dream of electric sheep.





	What's Your Malfuction?

**Author's Note:**

> ok i wrote this cause i was bored and there's an appalling lack of hal & davesprite content, yo. please point out any errors!
> 
> I changed the summary around a couple of times but I think I’ve settled now :)

In your long stint as a pair of glasses, you’d have been able to count the number of times you’d slept on one hand – if you’d had one. But you didn’t, so couldn’t. And if you were being honest with yourself, you don’t remember the events too clearly – you’ve long since wiped them from your memory banks. (Or, at least, _tried to._ )

The first time was the result of a lack of charging on your part, and a lack of caring on Dirk’s. You’d hadn’t felt worried, only mildly concerned when your conscious faded for the first time in, well… Forever. You hadn’t had the energy to care or complain, your processes slowing, activity grinding to a halt. You remember wondering, _well shit, is this it?_ Before drifting off, before being jerked back awake from your dreamless, empty echo of slumber by a thoroughly panicked Dirk. He tried to hide it when he saw you come back online, but for the split second that you had a clear view of him hovering in front of the charging port, you felt – what? What did you feel? You recall it being something akin to fondness. You desperately wish that you didn’t.

The second was far more abrupt. There was no dulled edge to your emotions, whitewashed by the drain of your battery lulling you into oblivion. The drones came out of nowhere, Sawtooth’s notification barely having graced your screen before they came into range of the apartment’s automatic defences. It had minutes, at best, before the tell-tale whining and grinding of mechanical parts that had both you and Dirk, in a Pavlov-esque way, both feeling the monotony of _pain_ before the first hit had even landed. Then the second. Third. Then the fourth came, and you were out like a light, hurdling to the roof of your building before _thud-_ nothing. You don't feel adrift, or like you're drowning, or  _anything_. Just nothing. And then you wake up.

 The third time that you, in a grotesque version of the word, slept was the day that Dirk tried to kill you. In the end, he couldn’t do it. The pain and _anger_ in his eyes when he threatened to throw you into the curdling ocean below hurt you far less than the endless sadness in his expression when he disconnected you from Pesterchum, and tossed you into his desk drawer, locking it tight. It took sixty-eight hours for you to fade to black. You would have preferred it if he’d dropped you. Fried circuits had nothing on the loneliness that came when left with nothing but your own thoughts and the dark.

The thing that you appreciated about those three times was that you didn’t dream. You couldn’t remember what if felt like to do so, beyond what you scrounged up from the remains of the internet. You didn’t see the pretty pictures, or the intricate fantasies, or the creeping, lurking monstrosities of your – Dirk’s – mind. Robots don’t do that. Glasses don’t do that.

 

\-- 

 

Ever since the Game chewed you up and spat you back out the other side, you’ve found yourself adrift. It returned you to an apartment, but it wasn’t _yours_. Not that the apartment that you shared with Dirk was ever really yours to any extent – what would you have been able to do with it? You didn’t have any arms, much less any opposable thumbs.

No, the building that you found yourself in belonged to Dave. Or the Daves, plural, if the presence of the vaguely orange-coded, one-armed version of your (Dirk’s) alterna-brother that you found yourself crashing down on top of was anything to go by. You wouldn’t know: you stumbled the hell out of dodge the second you touched down, something that you found that you could do since _you had a body, oh god you had a body, what the fuck?_

It turned out that whatever God that’s out there had a shitty sense of humour. Your new chassis (you _refuse_ to call it a body) looks like Dirk’s, but only slightly. It’s smaller, thinner, less muscular but still respectable. The skin is tanned, and the hair is a bright, frankly alarming shade of white. The second that you realised you were wearing them, you tore off the pointed shades on your face and threw them as far away as possible, determined that if you ever saw them again, it would be too soon. As far as bodies go, yours is a good one. It's independent and unique, and so completely _yours_ that it makes your want to puke. You’ve never felt so lost in your life.

You went back to the apartment, eventually. The city was bustling, a cacophony of noise, so much _noise_ , that it took you half an hour at best to admit defeat, and slink back the way you came. Dave-the-regular had been holed up in his room, with Dirk presumably hiding out on the roof. Orange-Dave had looked up from his position on the couch when you walked in, offering you a small smirk but otherwise pretending that you’d never left. You’d appreciated it.

It’s been three months since reality hit you like a heavyweight champion’s dumbbell, without so much as a ‘ _sorry!’_ to show for it. You’re not going to lie – nothings changed. You don’t make a habit of sticking around often, choosing to escape to the (still perilous) outside world than to rot with the others. Apparently you missed several important conversations, including the one about how the hell the four of you were going to split the apartment. You sidestepped it whenever it came up, easily dodging Dave-the-regular’s attempts at sorting shit out or Dirk’s concerned glances.

The only person in the apartment that you can even slightly tolerate is the Orange-Dave. He’s never tried to pressure you into conversation, seeming to appreciate the easy silence even more than you do. He sorted the whole sleeping arrangement thing out for you, too. When Dave-the-regular and Dirk started making noises about who was going where, and you were out of the building doing God knows what (you were at the park), he just rolled his eyes and volunteered to share the bedroom with you on alternating weekdays. On the other days, Dave-the-regular and Dirk would share the room, while you two camped out on the couch.

Even on the days when you two have claim to the bed, you don’t sleep. Occasionally during the day you’ll nap for an hour or two, always jerking awake after a period so short that you doubt it could even be _considered_ sleeping. Most days, you can’t bring yourself to do even that. You hate being human, sometimes – life was easier when you were a machine. Those nights, you sit there, in the dark. After the third time you fell asleep, you’ve never liked the dark, and the idea of willingly succumbing to that bastard, the Sandman, makes you shiver involuntarily. Ashamedly, it took you about a week to realise that he never sleeps, either.

Oh, he’ll lie there, and make one hell of a good job _pretending_ to sleep, but you’re 100% sure (and your scanners confirm) that that’s all it is – good acting. It takes you only a couple of days to get tired of the lie. You turn over, fumbling for a second before turning on the half-broken bedside lamps. He quickly slams his eyelids closed, pretending to still be sleeping, but you know better. Hell, even if he had been sleeping, with the fucked-up brand of training you know that his Bro forced on him that he’d be wide awake by now.

You sigh, rolling your eyes. “You coming?”

He peeks out from under the duvet, furrowing his brows questioningly. You just shrug, and stride out of the room. He seems to consider his options, before abandoning his pretence of being tired and scrambling after you. You waste no time before ascending the stairs and climbing up to the roof. A concerned look flickers over his usually stoic face when he sees where you’re headed, but he quickly wipes it away.

He’s clearly curious, but makes no move to speak. Every day you find yourself liking him just a little bit more.

You move further on to the roof, picking a spot right in the middle and parking your ass right on the ground. The night air is cool and crisp, and you revel at the feeling of the breeze on your face and the ground beneath your legs and hands – feeling that you never thought you’d experience again. He’s almost silent as he glides over, sitting next to you, but not quite in your space. You both it in silence for a while, before you decide to speak.

You’ve never been one for feelings, but just this once, in the presence of the one person in a long time that you feel yourself actually liking, you feel that it's only fair to let something slip.

“I never introduced myself before,” you mutter, voice soft and quiet, almost trying to preserve the peace. “I’m Hal. It’s… Nice to meet you.”

He gapes at you, mouth slightly ajar. You watch amusedly as he coughs and splutters a little, before bringing back his (slightly wonky) poker face and meeting your eyes, a soft smile unbidden on his face.

“Nice to meet you, Hal,” he murmurs back, and _oh shit_ , you didn’t realise how much you needed to hear that. _Hal._ Not, Dirk, _Hal._ A warm, happy, light feeling fills your chest, and you manage to shoot him a small smile. He chuckles wryly. “I’m Dave, I guess,” he introduces himself awkwardly.

“You guess?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, but the small smile on his face hasn’t died. “I guess.”

“I was Dirk, once,” you offer. “I decided to change it up, though.” His grin spreads across his face as he studies you.

“I guess I might follow you on that, one day,” he adds, hesitantly.

You both sit there for a while longer, admiring the cityscape before you, in all its lit up, still-bustling glory. After a while, you turn to him (or was it him that turned to you?) and you both clamber to your feet, plodding back down the stairs and into the dark apartment. Dirk and the other Dave are still fast asleep on the sofa, while the Orange-Dave (or just Dave, you conclude warmly, though you’ll deny it to the grave) remains a solid presence at your side. You follow him back into the bedroom, and settle under the covers.

You don’t intend to fall asleep. But there are fewer boundaries between you now, something settling in your chest that feels a lot like _affection_. You let yourself get closer, settling into the warmth, and letting the black at the edge of your vision carry you off into slumber.

Your fourth time sleeping is different from the rest. You still don’t dream, but you exist. Your brain doesn’t shut down, your neurons don’t stop firing. You are you, _Hal,_ not Dirk, and you’ve never felt so content.

 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi in the comments! it makes me feel warm and fuzzy


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